


"What's it like? Being a mum." -  Debbie and Rebecca (22nd May 2017) (canon compliant)

by BoleynC



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, sort of, the abortion is referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 01:24:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10979463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoleynC/pseuds/BoleynC
Summary: Set after Bex has made her call to the clinic, rescheduling her termination. Rebecca has a drink with Debbie, and asks her a few questions about motherhood.





	"What's it like? Being a mum." -  Debbie and Rebecca (22nd May 2017) (canon compliant)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing Debbie and Rebecca, so this is a bit of a practice for getting their dynamic right. Hopefully I will be writing a lot more about them in future!

Debbie is sitting with a pint at a table in the corner, with Sarah by her side. Rebecca pauses a moment to take that sight in, of how Sarah’s chattering, giving her mum cheek by the look of it, and how Debbie’s listening with a motherly frown, both adoring and disapproving at once. 

“Hey, Paris!” Charity calls over from the bar, spotting Rebecca. “Orange juice?” 

“Please,” Rebecca agrees, a little embarrassed at being caught staring at Debbie. She makes her way across the room and sits down at the table. 

“So Mum says you’re really rich,” Sarah says, turning to Rebecca. 

“Oi! Don’t be cheeky,” Debbie says, shaking her head.

“What? You _did_ say that. What’s it like growing up rich? Did you get really spoilt?’ 

Rebecca smiles at her, and then at Debbie to show her that it’s all right. She doesn’t mind the questioning at all. It’s just nice to have someone to talk to that isn’t her sister or Robert. 

“Very spoilt,” Rebecca agrees, as Charity brings her her drink. “I knew _exactly_ how to wrap my dad around my little finger. And I’m the youngest so I got away with way more than I should have.” 

“Did your dad buy you a car as soon as you could drive?” 

Debbie makes the same face she does when Charity says something outrageous.

“Sarah! What’s got into you?” 

“It’s fine,” Bex says swiftly. “And yes, he did. But only a Mini. I had to work my way up to anything else. Although it was a lovely little car. Pale blue, as I can remember.” 

“I would have asked him for a BMW.” 

“BMW?” Charity, who is apparently still lingering by them, repeats. “With Lawrence’s money I would have gone for a Lamborghini.” 

Debbie shakes her head with disbelief. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be on the bar?” Debbie points out, raising an eyebrow at her mother. “And don’t you have homework, Sarah?” 

“Yeah, but it’s dead boring. Maths.” 

“Yuck,” Bex agrees, screwing up her nose with distaste. “Although if you want to get your hands on a BMW one day, you'll probably need it, unfortunately.” 

“There you go,” Debbie says, nodding approvingly at Bex and then at her daughter. “So go on. Maths.” 

“What, here?” Sarah whines. 

“You’ve got your school things, haven’t you? Go on. You can do it in the back. Can’t she Granny Charity?” 

“Yes. Fine,” Charity agrees, as though she’s been personally inconvenienced. “Come on, young lady.” 

Sarah gives a long sigh to express her unhappiness at the situation, but obediently gets up. Debbie runs a gentle hand over her back as she goes. Rebecca can’t help but watch that gesture with fascination. Debbie really does seem to know what she’s doing. She looks like a brilliant mum. 

“I am so sorry about that,” Debbie sighs, when Sarah has disappeared out to the back room and Charity is serving punters again. “I did tell her not to give you an inquisition.” 

“Oh, no. It’s fine. Honestly. She’s a lovely girl.” 

Debbie tilts her head suspiciously to one side, as though she’s not sure if she’s being mocked or patronised. 

“I mean it. Sorry, that probably sounded odd. You just seem like a good mum. She’s got a spark about her, hasn’t she? You can tell she’s happy.” 

Debbie takes that in and then smiles. She appears to be trying to hold it back, but she can’t help her pride shining through. 

“Well, I hope she’s happy. She deserves it, after what she’s been through.” 

Bex nods in agreement. 

“And hopefully this business deal we’ve got going on will mean I can spoil her a bit more,” Debbie adds. “And Jack. Although I’m not sure I can stretch to a car just yet.” 

There’s a challenging but warm smirk on Debbie’s face and Bex finds herself beaming back. 

“We make a good team,” Debbie remarks, like the fact surprises her.

“I told you we would.” 

“No offence, but I thought you’d be a right snobby cow.” 

“Like my sister, you mean?” 

Debbie gives a slight gesture of her head which means: yes. 

“Well, thankfully, I don’t think I’m _quite_ that bad,” Bex says. “She’s just used to getting what she wants. And to be fair on her, she has worked hard to get to where she is. It’s quite admirable, actually, what she’s managed in terms of business.”

“Hm. She might grow on me a bit more if she didn’t treat me like me and my family are diseased.” 

“Sorry about that,” Bex mutters, looking down at her orange juice with embarrassment. 

“Not your fault,” Debbie says, surprising Bex. “And maybe I had a few ideas about you before we met properly. Which were totally unfair.” 

Bex raises her glass. 

“Here’s to second chances?” 

Debbie lifts her own pint glass and clinks it against Bex’s. 

“Second chances, and making lots of money.”

Debbie seems entirely at ease. She’s incredibly self-assured in a very natural way. Rebecca knows that she too can come across as confident, but that’s when she makes the effort. Naturally, she’s a lot less sure of herself than she’d like people to think. With Debbie there’s a very grounded aura, a sense that she isn’t afraid to take up space, to exist. She comes across as far older than she looks, like someone with a lot of life experience behind her, someone who knows how the world works and has wearily come to terms with it, without compromising on who she is. 

Rebecca wishes that she could reach that point one day, but right now there’s nothing grown-up or sorted about her. If she’s honest, she feels less sure of herself than she has in years. Perhaps it’s the hormones? she thinks. Realising she’s pregnant has certainly shaken her to her core. She feels lost, afraid, uncertain, and she knows she has no right to. _She_ was the one who didn’t use protection. She’s a grown woman. She could have avoided all this. But like with everything else in her life so far, she’s managed to mess up spectacularly, only this time there’s nobody to get her out of this. She’s on her own. She doesn’t even have Chrissie to turn to. 

What she wants is to confide in someone. She wishes she could confide in Debbie, but how can she? How can she when what she did will hurt Debbie’s own cousin? How can she when she’s so ashamed she can barely look at herself in the mirror each morning? She wants Debbie to like her, after all. 

She steals a few glances at Debbie as she sips her orange juice and then carefully, Rebecca chooses her words. 

“What’s it like? Being a mum.” 

Debbie looks at her with surprise, eyebrows raised. 

“You really want to know?” 

Bex nods. She’s worried that Debbie will simply brush her question off, but instead Debbie leans on the table thoughtfully. Maybe she’s wrong, but Bex thinks Debbie looks fairly pleased to have been asked. 

“Well, it’s hard. Messy. Way worse than anyone ever tells you,” Debbie explains. 

“Really?” 

“Yep. It’s exhausting. And you never get any free time.” 

“Oh.” 

“ _But_ it’s also the best thing in the world,” Debbie continues with great certainty. 

Rebecca blinks at her, confused. 

“That’s not just some cliche?” 

“No. It’s true. For me, anyway. Sarah and Jack… well, they’re my life. And yeah, it’s hard. It makes you want to scream sometimes, but at the end of the day it’s all worth it. I don’t know who I’d be without them. I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, apart from the obvious.” 

For a moment Rebecca has to think about what Debbie means, but then it hits her. She means Sarah. In typical Rebecca style she’d forgotten all about that.

“You mean…” 

“Sarah. Yeah. If I could make it so she never had to go through all that pain, I would. But I can’t. Which is another reason why being a mum is so hard. Because you feel their pain. If anything hurts them, anything makes them cry, it does the same for you. You just want to protect them. From anything. From everything. And _then_ they get old enough to start arguing with you, which is a nightmare. You know how cheeky Sarah can be. She’s got an answer for everything. No idea where she gets it from.” 

Bex smiles. She hasn’t met Sarah’s father, Andy Sugden, (and after what her family have done to him she hopes she won’t ever have to), but she doesn’t need to know the man to see that Sarah gets her spark and stubbornness from her mother. There’s a matching vibe of resilience to the pair of them. A sense that they are two people who won’t ever back down. 

“Why?” Debbie asks. 

Rebecca inwardly panics. She takes another sip of her orange juice to hide the fact she has no answer to give. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“Why are you so interested?” Debbie pushes on. 

“Oh, I just… you know how it is. I’ve been thinking about things a lot recently. What I want to do with my life.” 

“And what? You want kids?” 

Bex swallows. It’s a difficult question. 

“I don’t know. I thought I did. I’ve always… you know, imagined myself as a mum. One day.  But I thought I’d have someone. That we’d have a family and it would just happen.” 

Debbie gives her a knowing grimace. 

“Yeah, little spoiler for you, it doesn’t work like that. They never tell you that in the storybooks.” 

“I kind of worked that one out for myself,” Bex agrees sadly. “And if Prince Charming exists I’ve certainly not met him yet.” 

“Who needs him anyway?” Debbie says, the hint of a smile on her lips. “He’s massively overrated.” 

“I suppose we have to toughen up and rescue ourselves,” Bex says. She’s trying to keep her tone light, to fit in with Debbie’s easy banter, but Debbie seems to notice something’s wrong, some sadness in her eyes, because she frowns and changes her tone. 

“Everything does work out in the end, though,” Debbie consoles her. “Or so I’m told. And hey, if I’ve learned anything from what’s happened to Sarah, it’s that we’re more resilient than we think. Sarah’s fearless. She’s far braver than I’ve ever been. It’s amazing, really.” 

Rebecca nods, not sure what to say to that. She knows Debbie’s probably heard it all before, people telling her how admirably she’s dealt with it all, how brilliant Sarah’s been. And Rebecca doesn’t really feel she has the right, not after what her family’s done to that little girl’s father. If it wasn’t for Chrissie, then maybe Sarah might have gone through her cancer treatment with her dad at her side. Maybe then Debbie wouldn’t have had to deal with this alone, as a single mum. 

“When you had Sarah, you must have been young,” Bex points out carefully, not wanting to seem like she’s prying. “How did you cope?” 

“I didn’t at first. I made some huge mistakes. There are things that… well, that I’m not proud of.” 

Bex waits for Debbie to elaborate, but she doesn’t. Clearly whatever she did back then is something she doesn’t want to have to talk or think about. Rebecca is about to apologise for bringing the subject up when Debbie starts to talk again.  

“Having Sarah was terrifying. It changed my life. And I wasn’t the best mum to start with. I let Sarah down. I panicked. But I got through it. It made me stronger. And it made me a better person, too. For her and for Jack. It made me grow up.”

“You obviously love them both very much,” Bex agrees swiftly, feeling guilty for bringing the subject up. Debbie’s gone more contemplative now, more serious. There’s none of her usual defensiveness. That must be a Dingle trait, Bex thinks, because Aaron Dingle gives off the exact same vibe of anticipating judgment, and being ready with a comeback just in case. She supposes being a Dingle comes with just as heavy a weight as being a White, only without the consolation of having the money to make up for the stares, the preconceptions. 

“Like I said, they’re my world,” Debbie agrees matter-of-factly, downing the last of her pint.

“Right,” Bex mumbles, mulling that over. Debbie’s certainly given her a lot to think about. Talking to her has made the situation that much more real, more important. Having a termination is huge. It’s scary. It’s scary because with one decision Bex could be cutting off a potential future, the chance to have a child of her own, to love someone as much as Debbie loves Jack and Sarah, in the purest, most beautiful of ways. The love of a child would be unconditional. Bex has never felt anything like that before, and she wants to. 

“Bex… are you okay?” Debbie asks, tilting her head to one side so her long hair brushes against the table. 

Immediately Bex puts on a smile. 

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Because this got weirdly deep very fast. I don’t want to scare you off on our first day working together.”

“Trust me,  you haven’t done that,” Bex assures her. 

“Well, good.”

Debbie gives her a smile. It’s small, but it’s sincere. There’s nothing fake about Debbie, no messing about and pretending to be what she’s not. When she smiles like that it’s clearly because she means it. 

“Um, you know what, I should really get going,” Bex mutters, getting to her feet. “I’ve got a lot on tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” Debbie says easily, like it doesn’t bother her much. She’s clearly not a woman who’s afraid to sit and drink alone. 

“I’ll call you?” Bex suggests. 

“You do that.” 

“Great. Well, thank you. For the talk.” 

Debbie frowns at her. 

“Do they not chat up at Home Farm or something?” 

Bex forces a laugh. 

“What I mean is, that it’s nice to spend time with someone normal. Decent, I mean.” 

“Well thanks, I think,” Debbie says uncertainly, before her expression changes into something more playful, more challenging. “Give Chrissie my best, won’t you?” 

“Careful,” Bex reprimands her, and Debbie gives a quirk of her eyebrow to show that she understands. 

Rebecca fixes her bag on her shoulder, takes a breath for confidence, raises her head (because she’s still a White, even if she does hate herself currently), and leaves the Woolpack.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave me a comment if you liked this! I like to write little in-between canon compliant scenes for Robron, so I thought I'd start doing that for Whingle/Debbex as well. 
> 
> My twitter is @ClaudiaBoleyn and my Tumblr is claudiaboleyn.tumblr.com if you wanted to say hi or follow me or whatever. 
> 
> xxx


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